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Monday, February 27, 2012

Bubbly on Your Budget

I recently finished reading this book: Bubbly on Your Budget by Marjorie Hillis. Originally published in 1937, this book was a fun little read and offered an interesting look at money-saving advice for the average female living in New York City in the 1930's. I thought I would record some of my favorite quotes from the book here on the blog:

"The one thing you ought to be ashamed of is economizing grubbily. Nobody who matters cares a pouf what your income is these days, but people do care how you live and how you act about it. The scale isn't important, but the effect is."

"We are not putting forth the Pollyanna-like theory that you can have just as much fun with very little money as you can with a lot of it -- though everybody knows plenty of poor people who are happier than the rich ones, to back up even this unpalatable notion. We are claiming that, given the right point of view, you can have enough fun, and it doesn't have to be dowdy fun or dimmed by a forced making-the-best-of-it attitude, which spoils anything."

"It all sums up to the fact that economy should be as nearly invisible as possible....The thing you can't afford is letting economy stand out like an ugly patch on a well-ordered life, drawing everyone's eyes away from the attractive features."

"It is therefore our hard-boiled advice, if you come to a stretch when you have to get all the meals and get them as inexpensively as possible besides, to make this little chore your hobby and to do it with an air. Nothing can be duller than uninteresting food on a drab table."

"Have a budget, and follow it, but don't have too severe and sternly sensible a budget. If you do, it'll ride you. You ought to ride the budget."

If you have little or nothing in your pocket: "There are a number of things you can do, and one of them (we warned you that this was going to be a sermon) is to go to church. Church is an excellent place to think, though thinking is something that takes practice, and you my have to go to a good many services before you get into the swing of it. Clear and honest thinking is one form of worship (and not the lowest form either), and no one who does it sufficiently is permanently out of a job. But this doesn't mean going to church and waiting, however patiently, for the service to be over. Worship is an active and not a passive process, though the activity may consist in slipping into a back pew in an empty church and sitting there. But not in sitting there in a coma, waiting for a light to descend upon you. You've got to make a definite mental effort, and it may take some time to see the results, but they are usually worth waiting for."